DESCRIPTION: Infection with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) poses a growing threat to the health of women in the U.S. Maternal HIV infection is occurring disproportionately among lower socioeconomic populations and minority women, particularly African Americans. There is growing evidence that the course of the illness in women is more rapid than in men; while the cause may be biological, it also may be related to health-care seeking patterns of low income women. Low-income African American mothers with HIV face many challenges that may affect care of their health. These include denial or avoidance of the problem, inadequate understanding of HIV and its symptoms, a focus on the children rather than themselves, and lack of resources to help in self-care. Given the rapid spread of the HIV epidemic in women with young children and the chronic nature of the illness, it is important that nurses focus on helping women face, understand, prevent, and cope with the symptoms they experience as their illness unfolds. The primary aim of this randomized clinical study is to determine the efficacy of a maternal symptom management intervention designed to help low-income African American mothers with early HIV infection. Mothers with preschool children will be randomly assigned to either the maternal symptom management group or usual care group. The intervention will focus on the mother's response to and concerns about her HIV diagnosis, and help her to understand, manage and prevent selected HIV-related symptoms, using her concern about her children as a key motivator. The HIV symptom clusters that are the focus of the intervention are gynecologic, psychoneurologic, respiratory, and gastrointestinal, which typically cause problems early in the course of HIV and are critical in prevention of serious complications related to HIV.